Storytelling
Tommie Give Day
Situation
Tommie Give Day is the University of St. Thomas' largest single day of giving. The Advancement Communications team organizes an online crowdfunding campaign and encourages alumni, faculty, staff, parents, and students to donate in order to reach the dollar goal for the campaign. In 2019, St. Thomas' goal was to raise $600,000 in 24 hours for Tommie Give Day.
Task
Tommie Give Day is primarily driven by social media, email, and web storytelling. Additionally, the communications team is also tasked with developing, testing, and launching the web application that collects donations on Tommie Give Day. For the 2019 campaign, much of the storytelling was designed to empower past donors to share their story of philanthropy and charitable impact to facilitate grassroots support for fundraising among the alumni community.
Execution
Content strategy and planning begins four months before Tommie Give Day with web development and content creation occurring one to two months before the campaign. Content creation includes graphic design, photography, video production, and copywriting - all of which was completed by two staff members for the 2019 campaign. Multi-channel use of Marketing Cloud resulted in coordinated email and SMS campaigns. Tone for content was designed to reflect the impact of fundraising while also expressing gratitude and appreciation for the university community.
Results
Tommie Give Day 2019 was a major success, resulting in more than $780,000 in donations. Web traffic to Tommie Give Day engagement pages in the week before the campaign reached an all-time high. St. Thomas Development social media accounts also reached all-time highs in reach and engagement for a 24-hour period.